Hidden Respawn setting smooths Jedi Survivor on PC — but it costs input responsiveness

This actually changes what Jedi Survivor feels like – and it’s a tradeoff

This caught my attention because Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is one of those games people loved for its combat and worlds, but have quietly cursed on PC for persistent stutter months after launch. Digital Foundry dug through the game while testing DLSS 4.5 and found a hidden Respawn console command that halves the game-thread workload and uses interpolation to smooth camera and animation motion. It helps – notably on CPU-bound systems – but it also raises input latency and doesn’t play nice with some low-VRAM GPUs.

• What Digital Foundry found: a Respawn command respawn.rendering.interpolated (default 0) that enables “interpolated rendering — two render frames per game-thread frame.”
• Performance gains: roughly 13-20% CPU-limited FPS improvement in DF’s tests (20% on a Ryzen 5 3600, ~13% on a Ryzen 7 9800 X3D).
• The cost: increased input latency (DF measured ~18ms extra PCL on a Ryzen 5 3600 when fully CPU-bound, ~7ms on a 9800 X3D), and mixed results on GPUs with 8GB VRAM.

Breaking down what the toggle actually does

Digital Foundry (video published 2026-02-20) used France BMA’s Unreal Engine Unlocker to dump console commands and noticed respawn.rendering.interpolated. Conceptually, it reduces the frequency of expensive game-thread updates by letting the renderer interpolate camera positions and animation between those slower game-thread frames. In practice you get fewer raw “jumps” in motion — the camera and character animation appear smoother because the renderer fills in the gaps.

That’s why DF saw a clear visual improvement in sections where camera motion and nearby scene movement amplify small timing inconsistencies: side elements that whip past the camera look less juttery with interpolation enabled. But interpolation is not a silver bullet — if the game thread has a very large spike, nothing can fully hide a huge missed frame.

Numbers matter: what DF measured

DF logged roughly a 20% FPS uplift on a Ryzen 5 3600 in CPU-limited scenarios (example: Coobo Town test with resolution lowered to isolate CPU limits). On a beefier Ryzen 7 9800 X3D the improvement was smaller (~13%) because the game thread wasn’t as dominant there. Latency measurements are the caveat: on the 3600 DF recorded ~18 ms higher PCL with the interpolated mode on when fully CPU-limited; on the 9800 X3D it was ~7 ms. That latency can balloon if you add vsync or a 60 Hz cap (DF noted ~30 ms extra with triple-buffered vsync at 60 FPS on the 3600).

Who should try it, and who shouldn’t

If your rig is clearly CPU-limited and the stutter is ruining the feel, this hidden toggle could be worth experimenting with. For single-player, story-driven runs I can imagine many players taking smoother visuals at the cost of a handful of milliseconds of input latency. Competitive players or anyone sensitive to responsiveness should be cautious.

DF also warns about GPUs with limited VRAM: an RTX 4060 with 8 GB performed worse with the setting on in their tests, likely due to extra memory churn when traversing assets. GPUs with 12 GB performed fine. In short: try it if CPU-bound, avoid it if you rely on a low-VRAM GPU or absolute lowest-latency inputs.

Why Respawn might have this hidden option

DF speculates this feature could be a console-origin optimization — consoles often use interpolation or internal buffering to maintain steady presentation at a target framerate. That it’s present but disabled on PC suggests Respawn shipped code intended for a different runtime profile and left it gated. The discovery while testing DLSS 4.5 just shows how many developer-facing knobs exist behind the scenes.

There’s precedent for toggles fixing launch-era performance headaches: recent patches and modes on other ports (think Bethesda’s performance/quality modes for Switch 2 titles) show developers will eventually provide choices. But until Respawn ships a supported toggle, this one lives in the realm of power users using Unreal Engine Unlocker tooling — with all the usual warnings.

TL;DR — the practical takeaway

Digital Foundry’s find gives PC players an immediate, imperfect option: enable respawn.rendering.interpolated to reduce perceived judder and gain ~13-20% CPU-limited performance, but expect measurable input lag and unpredictable behavior on low-VRAM cards. It’s a useful bandage for a game that’s still suffering from game-thread frame-time issues — but it’s also a reminder that the true fix belongs in engine and code-level optimization from Respawn.

Source: Digital Foundry video (YouTube channel UC9PBZALICEQCSIikQ36PyUA), published 2026-02-20. Use the Unreal Engine Unlocker at your own risk; this is a discovery for enthusiasts, not an official patch.